Battle of Point Pleasant Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Point Pleasant River Museum Breaks Ground On New Building

Museum staff broke ground on Monday for a new building to house the Point Pleasant River Museum and Lakin Ray Cook Learning Center.

Following a fire that gutted the Old Nease Building, the previous home of the museum, the museum staff has been working to raise funds for a new building.

Smoke rolling out of the roof of the Point Pleasant River Museum on the day of the fire.

“Once it is built and fully operational, you’re going to be able to experience a ‘wow.’” said James McCormick, executive director of the museum. “You’re going to learn things about the history of the museum, the history of the river.”

Many of the artifacts were saved after the fire for the reopened museum. The new building will resemble a flatboat like those that used to travel up and down the Kanawha and Ohio rivers.

“The architecture of the design of this building, I mean it’s gorgeous,” McCormick said.

The facilities will also house the Lakin Ray Cook Learning Center, a training center with riverboat simulators for inland waterway navigation, as well as an attraction for the general public.

There are only six training centers in the country and only three on the east side of the Mississippi River. McCormick said the new facility will offer a better electrical situation for the simulators and put Point Pleasant on the map as a designation for riverboat training.

In addition to training, McCormick said he also plans to offer history preservation classes at the center. McCormick hosts a show about rare artifacts and discoveries on West Virginia Library Television and said he will use that knowledge to expand the museum’s archaeological operation.

“This area always, always turns up layers of artifacts,” said McCormick. “The river is loaded not only with artifacts but history, because there was so much that was going on, that was dependent on the river.”

Point Pleasant, and its waterways, share a storied kinship with America’s history.

The town earned its name after George Washington commented that the intersection of Ohio and Kanawha rivers was a “pleasant point” in 1770. The Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 pre-dated the battle of Lexington and Concord and is considered by some to be the first battle of the American Revolution.

In 1908, the U.S. Senate recognized the Battle of Point Pleasant as the first of the American Revolution. The measure failed in the House of Representatives.

For two decades, museum founder and former executive director Jack Fowler has chronicled the history of West Virginia’s waterways. He passed away last year at the age of 85.

“Our prayer was that he could be the first to open that door,” Point Pleasant Mayor Brian Billings said to the Huntington Herald-Dispatch at the time. “Now he’s not.”

Construction on the building is scheduled to be completed in August and McCormick said the museum will reopen to the public in the fall.

When that day comes, he looks forward to welcoming the community back. Through teaching history classes for kids, he said he’s seen the impact of hands-on history education.

“We want to work with the local community, we want to work with the kids in the area,” he said. “I want to make history come alive.”

November 22, 1825: Kanawha Valley Pioneer Anne Bailey Dies

Kanawha Valley pioneer Anne Bailey died in Gallipolis, Ohio, on November 22, 1825, at about age 83. It’s not clear when the native of Liverpool, England, emigrated to America. However, she was living in Staunton, Virginia, by 1761.

After her husband was killed by Indians in the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant, she swore to avenge his death. She taught herself how to shoot a gun and became a scout. Some say this is when she earned the nickname “Mad Anne.”

She roamed the Western Virginia wilderness for 11 years, relaying messages between frontier forts. About 1785, she married Greenbrier County soldier John Bailey but continued scouting. In addition, she supposedly drove livestock from the Shenandoah to the Kanawha Valley.

A frequently quoted legend says that Anne Bailey carried gunpowder from Lewisburg to relieve a 1790 siege on Fort Lee at the present site of Charleston. Writers of that time didn’t mention the incident, so most historians consider the story to be fiction. Regardless, Anne Bailey’s services to frontier settlements were invaluable and remain a powerful symbol of the fortitude of pioneer women.

October 10, 1774: The Battle of Point Pleasant is Fought

On October 10, 1774, perhaps the most important battle ever fought in present-day West Virginia occurred at Point Pleasant. It was preceded by a long spring and summer of deadly violence between settlers and Indians. In response to these hostilities, Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore dispatched two armies to attack Shawnee villages in Ohio. Dunmore personally led the northern army, while the southern column was under Colonel Andrew Lewis.

Shawnee Chief Cornstalk closely scouted both forces. He decided to attack Lewis’s troops at Point Pleasant before they could unite with Dunmore’s army. During the battle, both sides numbered about 1,000, and the struggle was intense. Much of the fighting involved brutal hand-to-hand combat. Late in the day, Cornstalk misread a flanking movement by the Virginians as a sign of reinforcements. He surrendered the battlefield and retreated across the Ohio River.

The resulting treaty, which was signed five months before the Revolutionary War began, brought relative peace to the region. Although the truce proved temporary, it kept American soldiers from fighting a two-front war and allowed them to focus on the British for the first two years of the conflict.

November 22, 1825: Kanawha Valley pioneer Anne Bailey dies

August 18, 1823: Greenbrier County Pioneer John Stuart Dies at 74

Greenbrier County pioneer John Stuart died on August 18, 1823, at age 74.

As a young man, he helped survey the Greenbrier Valley and, in 1770, built the county’s first known mill —in the community of Frankford. He was given command of Fort Spring, which became a place of refuge for early settlers in the event of Indian attacks.

Stuart led a Greenbrier company at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 and defended Greenbrier settlements during various Indian raids, including the last attack on Fort Donnally in 1778. His memoir, which was written in 1799 and published in 1833, includes accounts of the Battle of Point Pleasant and the later murder of Shawnee Chief Cornstalk.

John Stuart was a founder of Lewisburg, serving as one of the town’s first trustees. He was the clerk of Greenbrier County and built the first clerk’s office in his own yard. He also donated land in Lewisburg for the first county courthouse and for Old Stone Presbyterian Church.

His house at Fort Spring, which was built in 1789, still stands and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.